


Layers

by ArchitectOfTheStars (AdaEinar)



Series: Plance Fics [8]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: 2020 has been so awful you guys, Angst, Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, I for one want to believe him, Lance (Voltron) is a Good Friend, Lance promises it's going to be okay, Pidge needs to find her family, Sleep, Stress, Stress Relief, clenching teeth, go to bed pidge, not much shippy stuff but it's definitely there, please I need a hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:40:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28219353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdaEinar/pseuds/ArchitectOfTheStars
Summary: Pidge is stressed again, but Lance is there, and that's enough.
Relationships: Lance & Pidge | Katie Holt, Lance/Pidge | Katie Holt
Series: Plance Fics [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1933597
Comments: 3
Kudos: 23





	Layers

**Author's Note:**

> Eh, it’s not my best work. But it was comforting to write and it’s not awful, so may as well post it.

"Hey,” he said gently, placing a hand on her cheek. “You’re clenching your teeth again.”

She looked away from her dense calculations, blinking as her eyes refocused. She realized it was him and her frown of concentration softened. “How could you tell?” she asked. “I’ve checked in the mirror—it’s really hard to tell when I’m clenching my teeth.”

How was he supposed to answer that question? _I spend all day looking at you, Pidge, so of course I notice when you’re doing something, even something small_.

“I could just tell. You OK?”

“Focused,” she said. “I’m focused. I think I’ve been calculating for . . . five hours?” She pushed the paper away with the slightest hint of pride in her smile. Classic Pidge. She knew how worried he was, but still took pleasure in the fact that she’d been so engrossed that time had escaped her for a full five hours. She was always weirdly proud when she lost herself in her work.

“And clenching your teeth while you calculate is normal?”

She worked her jaw, wincing. She was clearly in pain and trying to hide it. “Kind of? I do it when I’m really, really focused. It doesn’t have anything to do with stress levels . . .” She grimaced. “OK, so it does a _little_. But I’m fine. If I were actually stressed, I’d be shaking.”

He held up her hand, which was trembling, and raised an eyebrow.

“Huh,” she said. “When did that happen?”

“Pidge, please,” he begged. “Go to sleep.”

Her expression hardened. “I can’t. I—” She groaned in frustration, then broke eye contact, staring at the sheet of paper. Her fist tightened as if she wanted to hide the shaking. “Two years, three months, and twenty-six days.”

“What?”

“Don’t ‘what’ me, Lance, I know you count days too,” she snapped.

“You’re right,” he admitted, “I do. We’ve been in space about eleven months and three days. Not two years, three months, and twenty-six days.” _What are you counting, Pidge?_

“I don’t count how long we’ve been away from home. I count how long Dad and Matt have been away from home.”

Of course. Why had he even needed to ask?

“Pidge—”

“At risk of sounding like a computer stuck on loop, I _need_ to find them, Lance. I _need_ to. And I’m pretty sure I’m running out of time, because the Galra aren’t exactly merciful.” And the eye contact was back, except much more intense this time. Part of him wanted to back down, glance away, but Pidge needed someone who would fight her on this. “I’ve been looking for almost two years and I’ve barely made any progress. And if this . . . project of mine, these calculations, if they help in any way, I can’t afford to take breaks.”

“You also can’t afford to stay up for thirty-six hours straight,” he said. “Even you make miscalculations when you’re tired.”

“I make miscalculations when I’m wide awake, too,” she muttered. “I make miscalculations all the time, and I cover them up because I’m good at that. I hide things, I lie, I scramble to patch up gaps in my security so that—” She squeezed her eyes closed and shook her head. “Ugh. I’m not good at this.”

“At what?”

“People. Mental health. Happiness. I . . . everything but computers and numbers, basically.” The trembling was back. “And when I start messing up with those things, too, it’s kind of scary.”

Pidge being scared was something that would’ve been inconceivable a year ago. But he could see her more clearly now. There was a lot more to her than the ruthless determination and shameless nerdiness he’d used to define her at first. She, like everyone, had layers.

Lance leaned forward and wrapped his arms around her. She stiffened, then relaxed into his embrace.

“If you’re making math mistakes, it’s because you’re tired,” he said. “Which just proves my point: you should sleep.” She shook her head, but he could see the smile when he looked down. “As for the other stuff, you’re not bad with people. You got me to like you, right? I think we could all learn something from your blunt approach to socializing.” She was definitely smiling now. “And the mental health . . .” He sighed, rolling his eyes. “See, if I tried to comfort you and tell you you’re good with mental health, you’d think what you’re doing right now—staying up until three in the morning—is OK. But if I tell you your grasp on mental health is crap and you should get in bed now, you’ll be annoyed. Any advice, Miss Blunt?”

She smiled. “I think you’re the one who’s being blunt now, not me.” She tried to sit up, but Lance decided to be petty and keep holding her. She stopped resisting pretty quickly, so he knew she didn’t mind. “But I still need to w—”

“No. You’re going to go to bed.”

She curled inwards as much as she could in his embrace. “I . . . I can’t. I really do need to finish this, and my brain is making the connections so quickly right now. I’m in my math zone. I don’t want to lose this.”

“How much do you want to bet your ‘math zone’ is some manic side effect of sleep deprivation?”

She was rational and objective, and very self-aware. She’d explained a bunch of different fallacies to him once, and he could almost see her running through them trying to figure out if she was violating one in thinking that staying up late made her think better. She was actually considering the theory, and it wasn’t helping her.

“Forget I said that,” he said, turning her in his lap and standing up, carrying her bridal style. “Come on. You’re getting in bed.”

“No, I—”

“You’re getting in bed, Pidge.”

“But I—”

“Pidge,” he said gently. “It’s going to be OK. As long as you take care of yourself, it’s going to turn out OK, I promise.”

“You can’t promise that.”

Ouch. That hurt, but she was right. Well, in some ways. But in others, he was the one who was right.

“I can’t promise that everything will go the way you’re hoping, but I can promise that even if things go badly, we’ll find a way to make them be OK,” he said. “Is that a promise you can accept?”

She looked up at him, cradled in his arms, her eyes shadowed by sleeplessness, though that barely diminished their amber shine. He’d already guessed, but for the first time that night, he really got a sense for how exhausted she was. How much the world was crashing in on her, and how much she was struggling to hold it all up. She _was_ holding it up because she was Pidge, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t struggling under the weight of the universe.

“Yes,” she whispered. “I think I can accept that promise.”

“Good,” he smiled, giving her a soft kiss on the forehead. “Now you’re going to bed so I can _keep_ the promise.”

“What does sleep have to do with making things be OK?” she laughed.

“Everything.”

**Author's Note:**

> Here’s a tip for anyone who’s trying to comfort someone who’s stressed: we don’t need answers. We don’t need solutions. We don’t need rationality. We just need someone to wrap us in a hug and tell us, over and over, that it’s going to be okay. We need to hear that blissful lie until we believe it, not because someone proved it accurate but because we’ve heard it so many times it _must_ be true. We don’t need someone to teach us how to handle our problems better. We just need someone we allow ourselves to relax and break down with.
> 
> We also need someone who can help us go to sleep when we’re clenching our teeth and our head is pounding with a headache and insomnia is driving us up the wall.
> 
> You know. Speaking from personal experience.
> 
> Me? What? No, I'm fine! I've had a great year! I'm definitely not counting the days until this hellish year is over, no sir, why ever would I do that?


End file.
